Mysterious Illness
by darisu-chan
Summary: When Kaneki starts feeling weird, he sets up to find the cause of his mysterious illness, which might be contagious, for Touka is feeling bad too.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Tokyo Ghoul. It's property of Ishida Sui.

 **Author's Note:** Hello! I'm back with more Touken. This is actually a request from Tumblr, "can I ask for a Touken Fic that shows kaneki's reaction at finding out touka´s pregnancy." I was actually excited about it, but I took a long ass time actually writing it because chapter 125 got in my way. So, I had to replan everything. It too was inspired by a post by fuon-yuuki on Tumblr: "Touka is the one who confessed. Touka is the one who proposed. I will not be in the least surprised if Kaneki finds out he's pregnant 2 months later."

Also, this ficlet totally ignores chapter 127, so ignore it too. All I can say is that this one-shot is fluffy and light-hearted. Hope you enjoy it!

Mysterious Illness

"And then, we found out that a group of Oggai was seen at the 19th ward…"

Kaneki tried to drown Tsukiyama's voice out, but to no avail. It was honestly giving him a headache. Kaneki felt like someone was hitting him hard with a hammer. He rubbed his forehead, sighing a little bit. He couldn't wait for this meeting to be over, although it was important for their safety. The Oggai were moving fast, and they also had to move to places where the chances of being caught would be less likely. Still, Kaneki felt like he needed to rest for a couple of hours. His head was killing him.

"Onii-chan, are you alright?" Hinami's sweet voice startled him a bit. She had whispered her question, so as to not interrupt Tsukiyama. She was also looking at him with worried eyes.

The man smiled. "Yes. Don't worry, Hinami-chan."

"Really? Because you look a bit pale." The girl next to him replied.

Kaneki wasn't surprised at all. He figured that since he wasn't feeling well, it must have been showing on the outside already. Still, he didn't want to worry Hinami.

"It's nothing, really."

Hinami didn't look convince, but she nodded and focused back on the meeting. Kaneki sighed again, praying Tsukiyama would finish soon, or that someone would interrupt him. His prayers were answered when Touka started speaking.

"Could you just cut straight to the point already?" She barked at him. Next to her, Nishiki stifled a snicker.

 _Thank you, Touka-chan_. Kaneki mentally thanked her and sent her a smile in appreciation.

Tsukiyama, ever the drama queen, got offended. " _Excusez moi_ , Kirishima-san, but the background information is important!" The man huffed dramatically.

Touka rolled her eyes. "Then, proceed."

"As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted−"

Kaneki felt his head throbbing harder. "Tsukiyama, please just tell us your conclusions."

"Oh, _oui,_ of course _my king_!" Tsukiyama Shuu nodded happily. "We have concluded that the best course of action is to remain here for at least this week. We're far away enough from the Oggai to not be in any immediate danger. However, we might have to split again soon."

Kaneki frowned at his answer but nodded. "Alright. Then we'll wait. In the meantime, Tsukiyama, Ayato-kun, start looking for appropriate hideouts."

"Hai."

"Oui."

Both men nodded.

"Then, you're all dismissed." Once they heard their king's dismissal, they all exited the room, and went their separate ways. Only Hinami remained, looking at Kaneki, still obviously concerned.

"You're working too hard, onii-chan. You should rest."

"I know, and I will, don't worry." He patted her head tenderly.

Hinami pouted. "You should really rest and eat properly, or else onee-chan and I will get mad at you."

Kaneki laughed. "It won't have to come to that. I promise."

"Okay. See you later, onii-chan." And with that, the girl left, joining Ayato, who had been waiting for her at the door.

Once he was left alone, Kaneki rubbed his eyes tiredly. The truth was he had been feeling weird lately. His head tended to hurt, and he also felt weaker and sleepier more often now. He guessed he had probably exhausted himself from all the things that had happened, one after another. Things would get worse soon, and worrying so much was taking its toll on him. He sighed. Hinami was right. He needed to take care of himself better now. Everyone was counting on him.

He stretched a bit, as a yawn escaped his lips. He definitely need to take a nap. Oh well, it's not like he was going to do anything important. With that in mind, he walked towards his bedroom. He opened the door softly, and smiled tenderly when his eyes gazed at a certain scene. Touka was on the bed, eyes closed, sleeping soundly. She looked so pure and innocent. Simply breathtaking. Kaneki blushed a bit, and started walking towards the bed. Careful of not waking her up, he took both his pants and shirt off, and then slipped right next to her, wrapping one of his arms around her hips, bringing her to his chest.

"Hey." She said, sleepily.

"Hey, yourself." Kaneki replied, grinning down at her. God, she was so cute.

Touka just smiled back, and then pressed her head on Kaneki's chest, using him as a pillow. Her hands started playing with the ring which lay on his chest. Her hair tickled him.

"Are you sleepy?" He questioned, laughing a bit at the feeling of Touka's hair on his chest.

"Hmmm." She murmured, not opening her eyes.

"Me too." He said, and started rubbing her back.

Touka opened her eyes again. "Then let's take a nap."

Kaneki kissed her softly on the lips. "Great idea."

Then, both got into a better position, still holding each other, and closed their eyes.

* * *

Kaneki's exhaustion was just the beginning of what he called his mysterious illness. First there were headaches and feeling sleepy all the time, then he started being a bit moody, which he attributed to his aforementioned pains, but things got worse that week. For instance, one evening he had been reading some reports, when he suddenly got _very_ hungry. It wasn't that strange, since he actually was supposed to eat soon anyway, but what was weird is that he was craving a _specific_ kind of food.

"God, it'd be great to eat some _eyes_ now!" He exclaimed, referring to no one in particular.

Nishiki, who was next to him, raised an eyebrow. "Eyes? Since when do you prefer them? I thought you didn't care about what kind of meat you eat."

Kaneki frowned a bit at that. "I don't… I just thought it'd be good to eat some right now."

Tsukiyama, who was just passing by, heard the conversation and decided to put his two cents. "Oh, Kaneki-kun! You read my mind! What kind would you prefer? Blue yes? Green eyes? Big ones? Smaller ones? Or maybe dark ones like yours?" At this, he walked closer to Kaneki, until they were face to face, trying to touch his face.

Kaneki slapped his hand away. "Any would do, really. I don't have a preference."

"Then I'll go fetch you some _de inmediato_!" Tsukiyama exclaimed, and dashed through the door.

Touka chose that exact moment to walk in. "What's got Tsukiyama in a hurry?" She asked the two men in the room.

"I was craving eyes, and Tsukiyama went to fetch some for me."

Touka nodded. "Yeah, they _do_ sound nice right now." She drooled a little.

"Right? I wish I could eat them all day!" Kaneki said, drooling too.

Nishiki looked at them with disgust clear on his face. "You two are acting weird."

"What's weird about eating eyes? You eat them too, shitty Nishiki." Touka replied.

"It's weird that you're having a fascination for them out of the blue!"

The young woman rolled her eyes. "You're exaggerating."

"Whatever." Nishio scoffed.

Kaneki thought too that Nishiki was blowing the situation out of proportion. But that night, he started questioning if it was actually weird or not to suddenly have cravings. He had never craved any specific human part before. He had just craved meat in general. He supposed that if humans could crave any specific kind of food, so could ghouls. He shrugged and stopped worrying about it, until next day he was craving liver.

* * *

Things took a turn for the worse the morning before Goat's next meeting. Kaneki was fast asleep, when he was woken up with a startle by a sudden movement on the bed. Touka had sprung from Kaneki's arms, and had dashed straight to the bathroom, where she began throwing up on the toilet. The sounds alarmed the man, who ran towards the bathroom, and started gently rubbing his lovers back.

"There, there, Touka-chan." He said softly, still rubbing her back, and making sure her hair was out of the way.

Although he tried to appear calm, he was panicking inside. Had Touka been eating human food again? No, that was impossible. She had no reason to do such a thing. Maybe she was just sick. But what kind of sickness was that? Did ghouls even get sick?

Once she had stopped vomiting, she sat on the floor heaving. Kaneki leaned down and cleaned the remains off of her face with a wet towel. He then flushed the toilet.

"Thank you." Touka said in appreciation, and smiled weakly at him. With Kaneki's help, she stood up, her legs shaking as she did so.

"Are you feeling better?" He asked her.

"Yeah, my stomach's not queasy anymore." She replied. She still looked very pale, and Kaneki didn't like that.

He frowned, but before he could say anything more, his stomach began cramping, and next thing he knew, he was on his knees, throwing up on the toilet. Touka cried out his name in alarm, and sat next to him, rubbing his back much like he had done with her earlier. Once he was done, he flushed the toilet again, and rested his back on the cold wall.

"How are you feeling?" Touka asked him worriedly, pushing his hair back.

"A little better." He replied.

Touka sighed, and sat closer to him, putting her head on his shoulder. Kaneki immediately hugged her, pulling her even closer to him. Both were breathing heavily, and were pale. On the back of his mind, the man thought it was probably better if they both walked to bed and tried to sleep more. However, they were too weak to stand up yet, and remained in that position for a few minutes.

"Maybe we ate rotten meat?" Touka elaborated.

"Maybe…" Kaneki replied, definitely not convinced that was the cause.

He stood up, using the wall as leverage, and pulled Touka up with him. "Let's go back to bed." He said, taking her by the hand, and leading her to the bedroom. They lay down, Kaneki wrapping his arms around her like he liked to do. They instantly fell asleep, being exhausted and weak.

They woke up hours later, still weak and pale. They shrugged and got ready for the meeting, but deep down, Kaneki's mind was reeling, trying to find the cause for the sickness. He tried to recall if they had, in fact, eaten rotten meat. If there was even the slightest possibility of that happening. But he couldn't remember anything. As far as he knew, the meat he had eaten had tasted just fine. Besides, the rest of his companions would be ill too, and they all looked healthy, their cheeks rosy, and acting like normal. The other probability was that either Touka or him had caught a virus, and had infected the other through saliva exchange. Then the question was what kind of virus they had, and how they had become infected in the first place.

During the meeting, Kaneki's stomach kept cramping. He prayed he didn't start throwing up right then and there, alarming everyone. He also kept shooting glances at Touka, who still looked pale but remained impassive. He couldn't see if she was feeling well by her expression, so he hoped she was doing better than he was. Shaking his head, he focused back on the meeting taking place.

"The best course of action is to separate again, and meet in another location after a week." Kaneki said, after having listened to all reports. "Let's divide in small groups, so as to not attract attention."

"He just says that to be alone with _you-know-who_." Nishiki joked, then a thud was heard, and the man yelped. "What the hell was that for, Shitty Touka?!"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Shitty Nishiki."

Kaneki rolled his eyes, but did his best to ignore them. "Then, if there are no questions, let's prepare. We leave tomorrow."

As he packed his few belongings, Kaneki started thinking hard about this mysterious illness. Now that he thought about it, yesterday he had felt slightly nauseous when he had smelled the coffee Yomo-san had prepared. It was weird, but he didn't think much about it then. Then, he thought about his other symptoms, like having headaches and feeling weak. Perhaps they were correlated. However, he was no doctor, and couldn't possibly pinpoint the cause. Asking Banjou was out of the question, he didn't want to alarm anyone. He looked at the computer they used to read the news. Maybe if he searched for the answers on the internet? It seemed like a stretch, but perhaps it could give him an idea. He had nothing to lose. Shrugging, he turned on the computer, and then proceeded to write his symptoms on the search bar.

"Let's see…" He spoke aloud. "Headaches, sleepiness, feeling tired, cravings, nausea, and vomiting… Hmmm… it seems kind of general… Whatever." And he pressed enter.

The first ten results were all about the same illness, or rather, _situation_. _Am I pregnant? How to know you're pregnant, Pregnancy symptoms_ , and such articles appeared in front of Kaneki's eyes. His first reaction was to mentally yell _But I'm not pregnant!_ Then he felt silly for even contemplating that possibility and laughed at himself. "I should've specified my gender." He chuckled. Out of curiosity, he started reading the first article. All of his symptoms, plus some more were listed there. "Yeah, it does sound like I'm pregnant. Too bad it's impossible. I'm a guy after all." Then his mind came to a halting screech. It dawned on him that he wasn't the only one feeling sick. _Touka_ had also been sick lately.

"I'm just sleepy." She had told him one time that he had found her taking a nap on the couch.

"Are you okay?" He had asked Touka one time, when she had been rubbing her forehead.

"Just a headache, it'll pass soon."

Then there were the cravings they had both shared, and how they had thrown up that morning.

"What else does this say?" He asked, and started reading the article closely. It listed as a first symptom missing your period. Now, he didn't really know about that stuff. But he hadn't seen or smelled blood on her, so she hadn't had hers yet. He skimmed the list until he found other symptoms beside the ones he had already checked. Moodiness. Well, Touka was sometimes moody on a regular basis. There was no change in that. Swollen breasts. He flushed at that. He pondered for a moment, asking himself if they had seemed bigger lately, but couldn't actually remember. Being horny. He went red again. The truth was, ever since their first time together, they had been unable to keep their hands off of each other when alone and not in public. Most nights had been spent in the art of love making, exploring their bodies, finding out what made them moan, and what made them scream. They hadn't been using protection, though. Kaneki wasn't really thinking, and he figured Touka wasn't either. He blanched.

"Okay… it might not be _that_. I mean, we both share the symptoms, and I can't be…" He shook his head to clear his thoughts, and typed again on the search bar _Pregnancy symptoms in males_. The results made him gasp. _Couvade syndrome_ , it read. A condition in which a father-to-be can experience the same symptoms as his partner. A type of shared pregnancy. He stood up, shaking and having trouble breathing. Touka could be pregnant! Oh God! What were they going to do now? What was he supposed to say? Was she alright? What if she was feeling sick right then?! Driven purely by instinct, he rushed to their bedroom, opening the door frantically. Touka was resting on the bed, reading a book, but became alarm when she saw Kaneki's appearance.

"Is everything alright?" She asked, already standing up.

"You're pregnant." Kaneki blurted out before he could even begin to explain himself.

Touka blushed. "Wha−?"

He cut her off before she could continue. "It makes sense! You're sleepy, and probably nauseous since you threw up this morning! You have headaches! You look pale! And we haven't been careful, so it could be…" He ranted, not pausing to breathe until she stopped him.

"Kaneki."

"What?"

"Sit." She instructed, patting the space next to her. He did as he was told. Touka breathed deeply. "You're right. I haven't been feeling well lately." She began explaining. "And I haven't got my period yet…" She mumbled quietly. Then, she took his hands and placed them on her flat belly. "So, I do think that I might be pregnant." Her cheeks turned the most beautiful shade of pink, and she gave him a bright smile.

Kaneki sucked breath, before beaming at her. His hands started gently caressing her abdomen. "I'll take care of both of you… My family…" He whispered, and then leaned down to kiss Touka. She held him closer to her body and deepened the kiss.

"I know you will." Then she frowned. "But this doesn't explain _why_ you've been sick lately."

Kaneki laughed, and scratched his head in embarrassment. "Well it seems guys can share the symptoms with their pregnant partners."

Touka snorted. "Figures you'd feel pregnant too."

They both laughed, and held each other again.

* * *

 **A/N:** That syndrome is legit, but apparently happens when the man already knows he's going to be a father. I have also heard of women and other people who aren't the pregnant woman's partner feeling pregnancy symptoms.


End file.
